11/2/2015; 20 minutes

In this talk, Carol Ember (Yale Univ) describes the results from decades-long research that tested a variety of theories about warfare and other forms of violence in a sample of 186 societies. Many of the theories of warfare assumed to be plausible fell short, such as the idea that war becomes more likely with agriculture and political complexity. On the other hand, resource scarcity, particularly unpredictable scarcity such as drought, is a particularly strong predictor of more warfare. Warfare is, however, not an isolated form of violence; indeed warfare is correlated with many other types of violence. Ember concludes with a discussion about the relevance of these research findings to the world today. Recorded on 05/16/2014. (#28352)

Copy the following code and paste it into your web page to embed this video: